The video Perry’s campaign can’t resist using

Expect to see the video of this air kiss again and again between now and March.

The video was used by Perry’s allies in 2005 as part of an effort to drive U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison out of the governor’s race that year. The story I did on it at the time is in the extended entry.

AUSTIN – A week after Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign tried to link one of his potential GOP primary rivals to U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a 1993 letter emerged in which Perry called Clinton’s efforts at health care reform “commendable.”

Perry’s Republican allies circulated a videotape last week that has a shot of Clinton with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, at a nonpartisan event on historic preservation.

The videotape played up a brief hug and air kiss between the women and featured then-first lady Clinton, now the Democratic senator from New York, saying she is “delighted that Kay is my partner on so many fronts.”

On Monday, Hutchison’s campaign aides said the Perry letter to Clinton showed he was a hypocrite in making the videotape.

“I’m glad to see in at least some instances the governor is willing to reach across party lines, ” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s for Hillary Clinton’s socialized medicine plan.”

Perry campaign manager Luis Saenz said there is no comparison between Perry writing a letter on behalf of his constituents in 1993 and Hutchison accepting praise in person from “a rather liberal New York senator.”

Perry’s letter falls far short of actually being an endorsement of Clinton’s health care proposal. But it was written at a time when some commentators already were describing her plan of government-sponsored HMOs and health care cooperatives as “socialism.”

Perry was state agriculture commissioner at the time, a position he had won in 1990 after switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party.

“I think your efforts in trying to reform the nation’s health care system are most commendable, ” Perry wrote.

Perry asked Clinton to take special notice of the health care needs of farmers, ranchers and people in rural areas as she worked on trying to overhaul national health care.

“Again, your efforts are worthy, and I hope you will remember this constituency as the task force progresses, ” Perry said.

Clinton’s efforts at health care reform failed. Perry has since described her plan as “a government-run, one-size-fits-all health system.”

Saenz said the letter is just evidence that Perry will work with Democrats and Republicans in trying to do what is best for the state.

“In March-April of ’93, I don’t know that anybody knew what the final efforts were going to be, ” Saenz said. “That someone would try to improve health care is commendable. To have someone try to have the government take it over, as they ultimately advocated, is not.”

Hutchison has said she will not announce her political plans until this summer. She previously has promised to serve only two full terms in the U.S. Senate, a period of time that will conclude at the end of her current term.

Sullivan criticized Perry’s campaign for shooting the video of Hutchison and Clinton and circulating it when Hutchison is not an announced candidate.

“It shows they want to drag people down in the gutter with them, ” Sullivan said.

Saenz said Perry’s campaign wants to act aggressively against any potential opponent.